Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2182

lasers impart no kinetic energy.... best case scenario all a laser would do is melt the asteroid... so now instead of a large solid rock coming at earth... you ahve a large molten rock coming at earth.... which could potentially do MORE damage than the solid one

Not if you heat it enough for it to burn up on entry into earth's atmosphere.

Earthkiller asteroids are too massive to burn up even melted it would be the same mass... hell the impact would probably be larger because the thing would fan out when it hit the atmosphere... even the shockwave of something that size pushing through the atmosphere would be strong enough to destroy a good portion, if not the entire planet

In a word, a global extinction event.

yea

i'm not talking about smaller asteroids, i'm talking about ones that would pose a serious threat to life on the planet

If we shatter it before it gets to us, then destroy the pieces with nukes, we win, amirite?

the point i'm trying to make is, why spend the resources and energy trying to destroy it... when pushing it a few inches in any direction would be far easier and more effective?

becuase we are human, we destroy shit we dont push it aside and let the sun do the work. Real men save the planet, with explosives!

Nobody comments on my Pea Gravel idea... Well, that's typical. Absolutely NO respect for the idea that killed the Star Wars program.

KrAzY, I have to disagree with the Laser. Whereas it will impart no momentum unto the meteor, by vaporizing it bit by bit, you can eliminate the problem entirely.

T he problem with the laser is getting it to focus on an asteroid dozens of lightyears away.

tiny tim wrote:T he problem with the laser is getting it to focus on an asteroid dozens of lightyears away.

If it was dozens of light years away, we would never have to worry about it.

What I meant was it is really hard to get a laser focused on an object really far away.

Armageddon? Someone else has to have watched it..

And we have tons of stuff that's much more effective than nukes. Nukes are just the most powerful things ever used.... over half a century ago. In 172 years, a ground-based MAC should be feasible.

Of course, this is assuming the world isn't already destroyed before that. I mean, yah, it's been over half a century since nukes were developed - when we could finally do enough extreme damage to destroy the world - ...but we're talking about almost two centuries from now. Who's to say WW3 doesn't kill us all in a few more decades?

"I know not with what WW III will be fought with, but WW IV will be fought with sticks and stones."-Albert Einstein.

Lol, by the time the asteroid hits, I will have been unbanned from HWF!